…that everyone at Outrage was let go right after they turned over Alter Echo to THQ. These guys did Descent 3 and were part of Parallax before that.
http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=921660#post921660
–Dave
I’m sure they’re outraged.
Or wait, I guess they’re no longer Outraged…
But…
My head hurts.
I guess this is just so common now, no one even comments. Entire teams that have worked on at least two or three projects handed their pink slips and no one cares but them.
Should be fun to see the gaming industry in three years or so. Probably just be three or four publishers and everyone either works for them (and prays they’re not laid off) or gets a real job.
Should produce some quality entertainment that way too!
–Dave
I think it’s a case of justified apathy. A lot of people in the game industry aren’t doing anything about the current trends of how business is done. Sure, there’s a lot of bitterness and hard feelings going around, but until they get over themselves, they’ll never understand that a movement needs to be started to facilitate reform.
There are many problems with game development. Users in other forums may already have experienced my depressive outbursts after several sequential 100 hour weeks. In them I may have expressed a degree of hopelessness that only the very tired and abused can understand. And, it would be easy to dismiss me as one lone psychologically damaged game developer, if it were not for all the other deeply depressed game developers who repeatedly report the same issues.
You are right to say that there needs to be radical reform. I agree. I do not believe that it will happen for everyone, but for those who can there will arise a new way of working in games, and one I hope to get to as soon as financially possible.
It will be the return of the lone wolf (or at least very small pack). These developers will not be making licensed games, they will be returning to the roots of game development as an art form.
However, the revolution is not now, at least for me, until I can see a way to make money doing this. The major problem being one of persuading a financial backer (bank or publisher or other investor) to put up a relatively small amount of cash to bankroll 2-3 people for 2 years while they make a product. It is, paradoxically, easier to borrow 3 million for a whopping great big team with only one developer with a track record than it is to borrow 500,000 for a small crack team of developers with many hits under their belts. This is crazy.
In the mean time, I’m going slowly insane trying to find any spare time to develop my ideas so I can branch off and do my own thing.
I need a sugar-daddy.
Industry Dwarf
If people got over themselves and realized what was going on, then tried to implement a fix, we wouldn’t be where we are in this country today. Period.
Is there a union for programmers? Or artists, or any other kind of game development personnel?
Yeah, I’m typically of the mind that most unions have long outlived their usefulness and degenerated into abuse (not you, Mr. Teamster, please put down that baseball bat).
But there are cases where they may be called for still. Nurses, for one. And I’m starting to think game developers could benefit as well, given recent trends.
Unions have a purpose unless in a right-to-work state, then they are always abused.
Not saying that unions have purpose, really, just saying they certainly have no purpose in right-to-work.
What do you want, an online petition? Boycott THQ? A bunch of sad emoticons? Will any of those put paychecks in the hands of the Outrage folk?
There’s always someone else coming up the ladder who’s younger/ hungrier/ more gullible who’ll take the next contract from EA/ Activision/ THQ/ Satan. No hair off my back.
Or they can adapt and realise this is the way the industry will be from now on.
Or they can adapt and realise this is the way the industry will be from now on.[/quote]
Yeah, I think this is the way the industry is going to be, with a few exceptions. Established studios like id, 3DRealms, etc., have the money to bankroll their own development and call the own shots. Most of the rest of the people who want to make games will probably have to work for a major publisher.
I’m going to delurk with a response to this because it was once a very passionate issue for me. Nevada’s “right to work” clause means that anyone who is qualified can be hired for any job as a “free agent”; they cannot legally be compelled to join a union. It has nothing to do with a right to have a particular job, right to not be fired, or any other possible meaning you may come up with. Its really very simple: a right to work without being forced to join a union.
I hope you know this because many people don’t and ignorance is never good. I got tired of other Nevada friends of mine spitting the phrase out ignorant of its meaning and once posted a huge forum message containing the NRS itself, quotes, court interps, etc. just to shut up the idiocy. A person can’t use the law to protect himself if he don’t even know what it says.
As an aside, I am neither agreeing nor denying your post, Met_K. I just want to clarify what “right to work” means, at least in one State. Further, I believe this post will not get me banned.
I’m going to delurk with a response to this because it was once a very passionate issue for me. Nevada’s “right to work” clause means that anyone who is qualified can be hired for any job as a “free agent”; they cannot legally be compelled to join a union. It has nothing to do with a right to have a particular job, right to not be fired, or any other possible meaning you may come up with. Its really very simple: a right to work without being forced to join a union.[/quote]
Which in itself nullifies unions. Who would want to work for a union when you can choose to work without one? Hell, ask anyone in Illinois, it’s a bastard state full of unions who will bully the hell out of you to join one, just like it was years ago in almost every state.
The only (relatively speaking) type of work that has unions in most right-to-work states is mechanical work for the airlines, and that’s because the companies who contract with the airlines force the unions to lobby against the airlines every-time they try and steal workers away. Like I said, nothing but abuse.
Anywho, thanks for clarifying, for anyone who doesn’t know.
Wb Voltaic
Is Qt3 the new FatBabies?
[Mr. Butlertron voice] I like them. [/Mr. B]
Unfortunately, much like the movie and music industries, the “coolness” factor of the game industry will overwhelm any attempt for most of you guys to assert yourselves. You’ll say you’re worth 2X because of the risk of layoff (and you rightly ought to ask for that since you’re all glorified consultants now) and they’ll say they found some high school dropout hacker who’ll work for X/2. And they’ll be right too.
Ten years from now, there might be guilds to protect game developers. But right now, it’s far more fun to watch the suits convert your lack of social skills and self-esteem into hard labor.
There are many problems with game development. Users in other forums may already have experienced my depressive outbursts after several sequential 100 hour weeks. In them I may have expressed a degree of hopelessness that only the very tired and abused can understand. And, it would be easy to dismiss me as one lone psychologically damaged game developer, if it were not for all the other deeply depressed game developers who repeatedly report the same issues.
Two choices present themselves: 1) go double your salary for those same hours by entering the general tech industry or 2) strike fear into their hearts by procuring some automatic weapons and “going gold.”
You are right to say that there needs to be radical reform. I agree. I do not believe that it will happen for everyone, but for those who can there will arise a new way of working in games, and one I hope to get to as soon as financially possible.
It will be the return of the lone wolf (or at least very small pack). These developers will not be making licensed games, they will be returning to the roots of game development as an art form.
Art is cool, but it sure won’t pay the bills. Most of your audience is a bunch of gimps who will all buy the same 10 games. That leaves you high and dry unless selling a 1,000 to 10,000 copies is profitable and that figure determines your budget. But oh yeah, don’t forget it has to look and sound almost as good as a 100,000+ copy effort or you suck.
However, the revolution is not now, at least for me, until I can see a way to make money doing this. The major problem being one of persuading a financial backer (bank or publisher or other investor) to put up a relatively small amount of cash to bankroll 2-3 people for 2 years while they make a product. It is, paradoxically, easier to borrow 3 million for a whopping great big team with only one developer with a track record than it is to borrow 500,000 for a small crack team of developers with many hits under their belts. This is crazy.
Unless you can build a castle in the sky, investors aren’t interested. If you don’t understand why, don’t bother trying to change the world.
In the mean time, I’m going slowly insane trying to find any spare time to develop my ideas so I can branch off and do my own thing.
I need a sugar-daddy.
Industry Dwarf
Dream on. Unless you’re your own sugar daddy, you’re just going to end up in the orphanage or the Soylent Green factory.
The problem is that most developers believe the lie that is told to them about the game industry; that they are lucky to have their jobs, and that they wouldn’t make it on their own, and that crunch is just part of that job.
If an entire dev studio walked off the job during the crunch leading up to shipping a product, do you really think the developer will be able to just roll over and ignore it? Fire everyone? The truth is that in most cases, the developer is the one lucky that they have such a group of talented individuals. Sure, they can lay them all off and replace them with green university grads eager to break in to the industry, but their products’ quality, the company reputation, and everything else will suffer for it.
I have yet to see a strike happen in a game company, and until it does, game companies will continue to abuse their employees. Most dev studios operate outside the bounds of labor laws, yet they never even get called on it. I don’t know about in the US, but in Canada, the standard type of crunch that is so prevalent is also highly illegal. There is a hard limit to how much people are allowed to work. Crunch could get worked in so that it fit the laws, but it would only be for short periods at a time, and the developers would have to be compensated for it. In Canada, working overtime for longer than a basic period of time (I forget the numbers; I’d have to look them up again) requires written consent from the office of the minister of labour. Fat chance of a game company getting that.
Another thing is that these rights cannot be legally waved, even by signing a contract. Yet most people I’ve met seem to think that since they signed a contract, they can’t do anything about the conditions, blah blah blah. I’d bet that if a company’s employees actually stood up against management and took them to court, there’d be a resounding, precedent setting victory. However, I highly doubt it would ever happen, because developers are afraid, and there isn’t particularly anything there to prevent the company from just picking you off as a trouble maker and firing you.
It’s a sorry state all around, and I don’t particularly see an end to it, as possible as that end is.
Companies acting like companies, employees being treated like employees - HOW DARE THEY.
A small development team got laid off, we are at 9% unemployment, join the freaking club.
Chet